


one time thing.

by bemusedbicycle



Category: Bridgerton (TV), Bridgerton Series - Julia Quinn
Genre: F/M, Modern AU, Smut, Take it as you will, anthony is a big idiot, but basically i wanted to do my part to add to the fandom smut, but kate deserves the good sex, listen this is really just a smut fic, with some heart to it
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-17
Updated: 2021-03-17
Packaged: 2021-03-26 13:20:06
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,976
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/30106554
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bemusedbicycle/pseuds/bemusedbicycle
Summary: “Katherine,” he whispers, horrified. “Have you not had good sex?”A modern AU where Kate has not had good sex and Anthony, out of the goodness of his heart, decides to give her the good sex.
Relationships: Anthony Bridgerton/Kate Sharma, Anthony Bridgerton/Kate Sheffield
Comments: 32
Kudos: 328





	one time thing.

“She’s in the kitchen by the tequila.”

Anthony arches an eyebrow at Colin, staring pointedly at where his mixed drink is spilling over the rim of his glass onto his sweater. Colin gives him a wide smile, a slap on the back, and then – god help him – points at the kitchen.

“Kate,” he practically yells and Anthony resists the very real urge to murder his brother on the spot. His mother wouldn’t be thrilled, for one. Nor Penelope. “She is in the kitchen.”

“By the tequila, as you said,” Anthony manages through clenched teeth, taking the drink out of Colin’s hand and downing it in one go, delighting in the frown that pinches his brother’s face. He fights back a full-body shudder at whatever was in that glass. Something fruity and – horrible. “Why are you screaming it at me?”

“Because if you frown any harder, you might break something,” Colin responds merrily, taking Anthony’s drink out of his hand in silent retribution. His good whisky, mind you, and an unfair trade if he’s ever seen one. “You’re bringing down the mood of the party, to be honest. Go bother Kate.”

“I don’t want to bother Kate,” Anthony mutters, but his gaze travels to the kitchen all the same.

“Go fetch another drink, then.”

“The drinks are in the kitchen.”

Colin stares at him as if he is the dumbest person on the planet, and perhaps he is. He certainly feels it with the way his brother is looking at him. Though for the life of him, he can’t imagine what Colin is implying with that stupid, all-knowing grin of his.

“Imagine that,” he intones before slipping away, off to harass another, no doubt. Anthony waits a respectable three minutes and twenty-seven seconds before he steps towards the kitchen.

To get another drink, of course.

And that’s the rub of it. It isn’t to fetch another drink, and he does want to bother Kate. He wants to do a great deal more than bicker and banter and trade blows with Kate. Now that they’ve moved past the sworn enemy phase of their relationship, he finds he quite likes her company. In fact, lately, he’s been craving it.

And he doesn’t quite know what to do with that.

He finds her in the kitchen, by the tequila, just as Colin said. But she is, of course, not as he expected.

He doesn’t know what he expected, but it certainly isn’t Kate half-balanced on top of the kitchen countertop, hand groping in the upper cabinets. And he certainly wasn’t expecting –

“What are you wearing?” he barks, a lick of heat curling up his spine. It’s – all he can see is skin – smooth and brown and glowing and she – she doesn’t even look away from what she’s doing, balanced there. Just sighs noisily and reaches to her left.

“I’m wearing clothes,” she mutters.

“I’d hardly call it that,” he replies under his breath, though to be fair, it’s not a scandalous outfit. He’s seen tighter and shorter and – strappier. But for Kate, it feels like he’s staring at her in nothing but a negligee, the loose and faded jeans she’s wearing still managing to hug the curve of her ass, the two dimples at the base of her spine mocking him. Her spine, long and smooth, exposed by the crop of her shirt, the hem just barely skimming under her shoulder blades. She has a touch of bright, cobalt blue paint mid-way down her back and he wonders how it got there. Was she stretching during her painting session? Did she curl her paint-stained fingers around her sides, over her curves, up her spine in a slow, languorous stretch, her arms rising above her head, that wild mane of hair dipping low between her shoulder blades, just barely brushing those damned dimples?

He’s jarred, aggressively, from his daydream by Kate’s jubilant shout, her body tumbling off the counter and crashing into his, a bottle of whisky – his bottle of whisky – clutched victoriously in her hand.

He frowns and she grins, all wide brown eyes and sharp cheekbones. She pops the cap with her teeth and he bites his tongue, merely holding his empty glass in front of her nose.

“You don’t like my shirt?” She pours him two fingers before pouring herself three, chin tilted down to look at the clothing in question. God help him, the front is worse. The rise of her chest beneath the top, the way he can see the swell of her hips where it meets the brush of denim. “Edwina got it for me.”

He suddenly, violently, hates Edwina.

He doesn’t like feeling this way. Out of sorts, as it were, in regards to Kate. He likes her well enough. Likes how she always says what she means and means what she says, even if it’s a barb aimed at him. Lately even, especially if it’s a barb aimed at him. She is real and true in a way most women are not, and it’s –

He just doesn’t know what to do with her.

Or himself, to be quite honest.

She swallows down her whisky and pulls absently on the hem of her shirt. “I told her it didn’t suit,” she mutters, embarrassed now, and he’s a damned fool. “Nothing for it now, I suppose.” She boldly meets his gaze with a shrug and a forced grin, sipping at her drink. It’s a look he’s seen on her face countless times, and he hates that he’s the one to put it there.

“It does suit,” he manages, clearing his throat once when his voice comes out all garbled and twisted. She perks up a bit at that, looking pleased, and he feels about ten million feet tall. “You look lovely, but then you always do.”

“Careful there, Bridgeton,” she grins up at him. “I might just think you like me.”

He returns her smile. “We wouldn’t want that now, would we?” 

-

It’s easy enough, to hide himself away in the kitchen with Kate and ignore the rest of the party. How Colin knows so many people, let alone allows them into his home, is beyond him. Several minutes ago he saw someone drinking a pina colada out of an old rugby cup trophy.

Animals, the lot of them.

“You’re frowning again,” Kate points out and he reaches for the whisky behind her shoulder. He doesn’t even flinch when he sees that stripe of blue this time, though he does wonder what other colors look like painted across her skin. The faint pink of her blush. The bronze and gold in the stretch of her limbs. The onyx of her hair curled just so.

“Oh, now you’re really frowning.”

He huffs and turns to face her, his hip pressed into the countertop. Perhaps direct exposure will lessen the impact.

“Where’s Demetri tonight?”

It’s her turn to frown. “I think you mean Dominic.”

No, he means Dimitri. He refuses to call the man by his name. He looks like a Dimitri – some dreary character that slinks about in dungeons and the like. He has a ponytail, for god’s sake.

When he does nothing but give her a blank look, she frowns and picks at her thumb. “That didn’t really go anywhere,” she shrugs. “We weren’t a good match.”

“Oh?” He does his best to seem uninterested. The last time he saw them together was at Benedict’s studio, Kate’s laugh loud and unencumbered. She had looked happy.

He had hated it.

She shrugs again and he wonders if she keeps up with that little movement of her shoulders if they’ll freeze that way. She’s given him more shrugs in the span of one evening than perhaps the entire duration of their knowing one another.

“What was it then?”

“What was what?”

“What led you to believe it wasn’t a good match?”

And for whatever reason, this is the question that sets her face aflame. A loud, violent blush lights up her cheeks before spreading down her neck, tripping over the jut of her collarbones. He grins in response, and she scrunches her nose.

“Oh, now I must know.”

She gives him a look, all flushed skin and angry little eyebrows. “No.”

Delighted, he crosses his arms over his chest, his forearms brushing her fingers where she holds her glass. “Was he married?”

She looks personally affronted by the question. “No, he most certainly was not!”

“Was it the ponytail?”

She deliberates before answering. “No.”

The ponytail certainly played a part, then.

“Did he have an extra toe?” He gasps in mock theatrics, enjoying the way Kate shifts from foot to foot, flustered and annoyed with that mesmerizing blush heating her skin. “Dear god, tell me he didn’t hate Newton.”

“Of course not,” she mutters. “No one can hate Newton.”

It’s the truth. The tiny beast has ruined no less than six of his sweaters with his muddy little paws and he still loves the furry creature.

“Was he bad in bed?”

She opens her mouth to respond, and then slams it shut, eyeing her half-empty glass before tipping the liquor back. She eyes his glass, too, and curls her fingers around his, guiding his glass to her mouth and downing his drink in one go. It does something interesting to his chest, that, her fingers tucked between his own. The press of her bottom lip just grazing his thumb. His question, it had been in jest, but the way she’s furtively looking at him out of the corner of her eye, fingertips tap tap tapping on her empty glass, he –

“I am not discussing this with you, Anthony.”

Oh, ho ho. And we have a winner. It lights him up inside. Not that Kate was left without satisfaction, of course. But that he - he knew it. He absolutely knew it. He knew that Dimitri was a selfish, bumbling, idiot of a man.

“I see,” Anthony nods sagely and set his glass on the countertop, doing his best to flatten his smile.

“You see nothing,” she seethes. Her eyes narrow. “Stop smiling, you idiot. This isn’t funny.”

“I’m not smiling,” he says, absolutely, one-hundred percent, grinning from ear to ear.

“You are, and you’re terrible,” she huffs, frowns, looks for more liquor. “I truly don’t understand the big deal,” she mutters to herself. “What everyone is always going on about. I find the whole thing rather boring.”

And just like that, everything around him screeches to a halt. His thoughts, blissfully silent. The chatter and the music and the laughter of the party around him sound as if it’s coming from underwater. He watches Kate through a daze as she pours herself another finger of something golden, hand shaking slightly as she shoots it back, the back of her hand pressed to her lips. The pieces float together slowly at first, her words arranging and rearranging in his mind, before he comes to a sudden, startling revelation.

“Katherine,” he whispers, horrified. “Have you not had good sex?”

She frowns at a spot on the countertop. “I am not discussing this with you. Now, tell me what Penelope’s apron is doing wedged in the upper cabinets of Colin’s kitchen.”

It’s not the most graceful of subject changes, but he allows it. Kate prattles on about Colin and Penelope and timelines and things of that nature while he does his best to keep his brain from imploding. It is one thing to be unsatisfied with a partner, quite another thing to never experience pleasure in bed whatsoever. She had said – she said she found it to be boring? A series of images flicker across his mind – Kate, in a variety of positions – and none of them inspire boredom. Just what kind of men has she been with? What kind of men has she allowed the privilege of seeing her, being with her?

It feels like the worst sort of travesty. One, that unworthy men were ever allowed into her bed. The second, Kate not experiencing all that she is meant to. A woman such as Kate, she deserves – well, she deserves everything and more.

The idea comes to him suddenly, perfectly, absolutely stunning in its clarity.

“We should have sex,” he blurts, and Kate freezes in the middle of whatever she was saying. Literally freezes, her hand held immobile in front of her mid-gesture.

It’s the perfect solution, really. Kate would have a night of satisfaction. An education, as it were, on all the benefits to be found in good sex. And he would finally, finally, be able to purge her from his system. One night of incredible, mutual pleasure and his mind would finally get over this bizarre fixation. Direct exposure, as he theorized earlier, to lessen the impact.

She gapes at him. “I beg your pardon?”

He steps closer, mindful that they are at a crowded party, and this is not the sort of thing you yell across a crowded kitchen. “We should have sex, you and I. I believe I could show you a good time.”

She blinks at him, her face paling in the light that dances overhead. “Show me a good time,” she repeats back to him slowly, trying out the words on her tongue. His smile starts to dip on his face. It’s not the – well, it’s not the response he had hoped for, to be sure. She doesn’t seem to be intrigued by his proposal whatsoever. In fact, she looks – she looks rather horrified.

“Anthony, I – “ Her big, brown eyes look glassy, muted, a hurt lurking in their depths. She curls her fingers around her elbows, folding in on herself. “I did not think you could be so cruel.”

She barely manages it before she’s brushing past him, slipping from the kitchen to the overcrowded living space, that damned swipe of blue paint on her back the last thing he sees before she disappears into a sea of people.

His heart pounds in his chest, uneasy and unsure, not quite certain where he went wrong. He knows it a brash decision, perhaps spoken too bluntly, but he always thought Kate a to-the-point type of person. She’s always valued – hell, he’s an idiot – she’s always valued honesty.

And he hadn’t been honest with her at all.

-

He catches up to her on the street, his chest heaving from sprinting down six flights of stairs. Not the best look, when chasing after a woman, but at least in this he is honest. 

“Kate, you – “ he tries to breathe in deep through his nose. Out through his mouth. “I need to talk to you.”

She keeps walking, arms crossed over her chest, ignoring the way he limps after her, holding the stitch in his side.

“Would you wait just a moment?”

She stomps her way around the corner, foot sliding in a wayward puddle, and he steadies her with a hand at her elbow. It had rained last night, no thunder as far as he could tell. He had waited, his phone at his elbow, eyes peering at the sky for lightning, hoping for once the rain might pass silently without slipping into a storm.

She twists herself away from him, finds her footing, and angrily swats at the jacket he holds out to her. “I don’t want to talk to you.”

“At least let me apologize.”

For some reason, that seems to deflate her anger and instead she looks just – sad. She nods and looks somewhere over his shoulder. “For what you said,” she supplies, a bitter twist to her words. “For making fun of me.”

“I wasn’t making fun of you,” he reaches out and grips her hand, holding tight when she tries to pull away with a scoff. “I wasn’t! And I am not apologizing for what I said, but rather the way I said it.”

She peers up at him through the heavy fringe of her lashes and something within himself twists off, splinters, and settles back into place. “Explain yourself.”

He sighs, low and slow, and releases her hand. Curls his fingers over her shoulders. Makes sure he is looking in her eyes when he says, “I hate the shirt you’re wearing.”

She rolls her eyes and tries to pull away, but he holds her steady. God help him, he can feel the heat of her skin even now, standing two feet away from one another on a London sidewalk. She frowns at him. “That is a shit apology. Even for you, Anthony.”

“I’m just –“ His gaze trips over the swell of her breasts beneath her shirt, down to where her belly button peeks out from beneath the fabric. It causes a swell of frustration, a spike of heat, and a deep, deep pull low in his gut. “I’m trying to tell you.”

“You hate my shirt. Yes, you’ve mentioned.”

“I hate it because I can see your skin. And everyone else can see your skin. You – “ He shakes her shoulders slightly, pleased when her eyes widen just a touch. If she feels even an ounce of the desperation he feels, then perhaps she would understand. “You drive me to distraction, Kate. Always. Everywhere. Even when you’re wearing a turtleneck and boots. What I said at the party, I wasn’t making fun of you.”

She blinks at him, mouth opening and closing. He’d enjoy the moment if it didn’t feel like his heart was lodged firmly in his throat.

“You’re serious, then. What you suggested.”

He nods. “I was being serious, yes. I think – I think it would be good for us. Get it out of our system, as it were.”

One eyebrow arches high on her forehead, even as her eyes dart back and forth between his own. Taking the measure of him, no doubt. “You think this is something we need to get out of our system?”

It’s something he needs to get out of his system. So he can focus on finding a pleasant enough girl to settle down with. Live three to five years with in perfect, cordial relations, and give his mother the grandchildren she so desires. Make sure his siblings are taken care of and go quietly into the night.

He just needs to stop thinking about Kate bent over his living room couch, his hands curled over her hips, the glow of her skin transcendent against the leather.

“Yes,” he clears his throat. “I do.”

“And what you’re offering, is – “ she trails off, cheeks back to that furious, delicious shade of pink. “What? No strings sex? And then we just pretend it never happened?” She bites at her thumbnail. “I don’t know, Anthony. What if things get- what if things get strange between us?”

“It won’t. I won’t let it.”

She moves from her thumb to her bottom lip, chewing on it in consideration. He steps closer and curls his fingers around her jaw, pulls her lip free with his thumb. Smooths over it once. Her whole body shivers in response, and he sways further into her space.

After so long of denying himself, it feels like an indulgence. Euphoria.

“I know you feel what I feel,” he whispers, sure of it. There have been too many shared glances between them. Lingering looks. He feels like if he doesn’t kiss her, he’ll cease to be. If he doesn’t feel her breath on his mouth, in the space below his ear, across his chest – he’ll collapse.

Dramatic, yes. But he’s never been known for his pragmatism.

She blinks at him, head tilting back. “Like this is a monumentally stupid idea, but tempting all the same?” 

“Something like that,” he whispers, captivated by the teeth marks that indent the soft swell of her lip. He wants to leave his own marks there. He wants to feel them beneath his tongue. He nods to himself, a decision made. “I’m going to kiss you now.”

“Why,” she mutters, those brown eyes so serious and he knows without a doubt the way he answers this question is important.

“Because I want to,” he says.

She nods slowly, like that is a good answer. The answer she wanted. “And you won’t let it be weird?”

He shakes his head, humming, his fingers slipping from her jaw to that wild mane of hair. They tangle there, threaded just so, his thumb curling over the tip of her ear. He’s thought of her hair between his fingers more times than he can count. Of grabbing hold and chasing her mouth with his.

She doesn’t sigh or whimper when he presses his lips to hers. She doesn’t pull him closer, or whisper his name. She merely holds onto him with her hands against his chest, two small fistfuls of the t-shirt he didn’t think much about before leaving the house. It is so perfectly Kate, to be restrained and reserved in the things she wants. She tastes like – she tastes like ice-cold water and a hint of whisky – smoky and sure and devastatingly tempting. He lingers there, in the sweetness of their lips pressed together for the first time, before the hunger pulls low in his gut and he decides to be just a bit selfish. He nudges her nose with his and presses his thumb to her chin, guiding her mouth open, tilting his head to the side until his nose is pressed into her cheek, his mouth finding hers again. He can feel those indents on her bottom lip with his tongue, tiny little grooves that he traces once, twice, three times before she opens for him and he curls his tongue around hers.

She sighs then, and he smiles into her mouth, knowing he’s earned the sound.

His fingers tighten into a fist in her hair, tilting her head to the side and licking deeper – their tongues a wet, slide of heat against one another. He’s never had a kiss feel so consuming. Never felt like if he didn’t – if he didn’t press his palms to her skin, feel the heat of her, drag his teeth along her collarbone – god, he just –

Her fists turned to flattened palms against him and she pushes gently, her mouth stubbornly pulling away at the last moment. As if she is two separate entities, one pushing him away while the other pulls him closer.

“Alright, then,” she sways in front of him, and he’s a bit unsteady too. “Your place or mine?”

-

It is a quick drive to his apartment.

Her hand is warm in his as they bicker about interpretations of traffic laws and his driving speed, Kate’s fingers tightening in his when he tells her quite succinctly that he has no idea how she was ever given a license. Her dark eyes flash, her thumbnail bites into the thin skin over the back of his hand, and he is suddenly, achingly hard in his jeans.

He swallows, the lights of the underground garage beneath his apartment building painting her skin in oranges and reds.

“Upstairs?” His voice is rough, catching and scratching along the edges. She nods, and he watches the curve of her back as she climbs from his car.

She is unusually quiet as they traipse their way up the stairs, silent as he keys into his apartment, and utterly noiseless as he guides them to the kitchen. It’s disconcerting from a woman who never lacks for something to say.

“Would you like something to drink?”

She shakes her head and scratches at her nose, her eyes darting to the hallway that leads to his bedroom and back again. Almost as if she expects him to whip off his pants and drag her back to his lair.

The idea has its merits.

“Kate,” he steps closer and catches her hands with his, bumping their fingers together. Her shoulders relax a bit at that, and he huffs out a sigh of relief. “We don’t have to do anything. We can order Chinese and pretend I never propositioned you in my brother’s apartment.”

She considers him for a moment, hesitant, and slips her fingers from his. It’s him that’s embarrassed this time, the events of the evening seemingly catching up with him. How could he – how could he be so stupid, to think – to think Kate would want –

He feels the heat of a blush brush his cheeks, the base of his throat, but he is well used to tiny rejections in their many forms. He settles his mouth into a thin line and reaches around her for the stack of takeout menus he keeps for when Colin finds his way over, demanding food and entertainment.

Kate stops him with a hand on his chest, her palms tapping, her fingers tracing over him, dancing along his abdomen until they anchor in the loop of his jeans, twisting in the faded fabric and pulling him closer by the hip. Her eyes are understanding when he meets her gaze, her smile a tremulous thing, her features soft in the way that she doesn’t allow often. She presses up on her toes and brushes a kiss across his bottom lip, an entire conversation in the wordless action. His hands find her hips and flex, slide down over the curve of her ass. His response. A silent agreement. 

She drops to the flats of her feet. He encourages her back to him with a dip of his knees, his thumbs curling behind her thighs. He lifts and settles her on the countertop, stepping between her legs, palms pressed flat to the tops of those faded, loose jeans. Her legs are firm beneath his touch, her cheeks flushed, and that damned crop top brushes against his shirt. 

And what an idiot he is. Because he knows in this moment, that one night will never be enough.

“I truly hate this shirt,” he sighs, squeezes her legs once, and slips his hands over the curve of her hips, up her torso. His knuckles catch the edge of it as he presses his palms to her skin – the delicate curve of her ribs, his thumbs resting just under the swell of her breasts. He had thought it would be an inferno between them. A chaotic mess, to be honest. Flailing limbs and messy mouths. But this slow and steady heat, this – this careful consideration. It feels more right – for them.

He’s thought of it often enough. In the quiet stillness of night. In the early light of morning. In between coffee and meetings and tea and traffic – everything, always. Kate.

“Is this an Anthony Bridgerton move?” She asks, her knees hugging his sides. “The countertop thing.”

He shakes his head. “Don’t do that,” he abandons her shirt and presses a kiss to her neck instead, tasting her skin with his tongue. She is so warm, so soft. “I don’t want to do that with you.”

“What?” She questions, breathless, her head tipping back.

He stops what he’s doing against her neck and makes sure she is looking at him when he says, “I’ve not had anyone in this apartment, not ever. I know we’ve agreed to no strings sex, but it’s not meaningless. Not to me. You’re – you deserve to have someone try, Kate. That’s what this is. It’s not a move, it’s not a grand seduction. It’s me and you.”

She blinks at him, foot tapping where it’s tucked behind his knee. “It’s a little bit of a seduction.”

He tilts his head back and forth, considering. “Perhaps you’re right.”

She moans, loud and theatric, her hands clutching his shoulders as she throws her head back. “Oh! Say that again, please. But whisper it in my ear, would you?”

He grins and leans closer, pressing her back on the countertop until her hands are resting against the marble top. He presses his face between her breasts, drops a kiss between them before dragging his nose up to bare skin – the jut of her collarbones a delicious temptation. His teeth graze there on his way to her ear, and her body shivers against him when he takes the lobe into his mouth.

“You’re right, Kate,” he whispers, the laughter between them disappearing entirely for something heavier – thicker. It doesn’t seem quite as funny now, not when he can feel her hands pressing beneath his t-shirt. Not when she shifts her hips against him once in a slow grind. He presses back against her, angling up, and she exhales a shaky sort of sound.

“Did you want – “ her breath catches when he dances his tongue under her ear. “The bedroom?”

“I want you here, first.”

She huffs out a disbelieving little laugh, her fingers carding through his hair. He loves her hands there. Loves that she wants to touch him as much as he wants to touch her.

“First,” she repeats faintly, back arching as he returns to her chest.

“And then the couch, I think,” he continues, holding her sides as he tugs at her shirt with his teeth. He’ll leave it where it is for now, the promise of her breasts teasing at the bottom edge more tempting than bare skin. He wants to draw it out. Unwrap her bit by bit. Still, he noses at her breast through the fabric, tonguing at her nipple and peeking up at her when she sighs. He catches it with his teeth and she groans. “Then the bedroom.”

She looks bewildered, eyes hazy and unfocused. “What?”

“Doesn’t matter,” he drags his mouth lower, his tongue dipping into her belly button. She releases another shuddering sigh, her body tensing when his teeth catch on the button to her jeans. He rests his chin against her thigh, fingers undoing the clasp, lowering the zipper. She’s wearing sensible white underwear, and it’s enough to have him sinking his teeth into her skin through denim with a pained groan, his own shaking hands undoing his belt in a plea for relief. 

“Can I?” He traces the hem of her underwear with his thumb, slipping just underneath before retreating again. She is smooth beneath his touch and he wants to fall to his knees in front of her. Bite into her thigh and see what she tastes like everywhere.

Her chest heaves above him as the buckle of his belt hits the floor with a clank.

“Can you, what?”

He loves women. He loves their smell, their taste, the way they moan and sigh. But he especially loves this. How he can grant pleasure with the flick of his tongue, a twist of his fingers. And he is desperate – mad over it, really – in his desire to do this to Kate. For Kate.

He curls his fingers around the waist of her jeans, urging her hips up. The faded material slips from her with a whisper, her long legs spread wide to accommodate his shoulders, her skin practically glowing against the white of his countertop. He’s always thought her legs were incredible, but like this – god, like this – she is miles and miles of skin and curves, lilies and soap and the smell of her spilling into the air around him. He curls his fingers around her ankles, slips his palms up her shins, over her knees, along the outside of her thighs – and then tucks his hands under the band of those pristine, white, perfect panties and tilts her hips up.

“Can I put my mouth on you?”

She sucks her bottom lip into her mouth, her eyes dark. She lowers herself back to one elbow and cocks her head at him. “No one has before.”

He rests his forehead against her stomach for a second, hands flexing into skin. It does something primal to him to know – to know that he will be the first, the only to touch her like this.

“Please,” he whispers, somewhere into her navel. His teeth seal the benediction with a half-moon pressed below her belly button. “Please, can I?”

“Yes,” she whispers, and he’s glad he turned the light on when they walked in. Glad he can see the way her legs shake when he dips his face down and noses at her through her underwear. She is heat and warmth and Kate and he – he is mindless already, his thumbs pressed against her hip bones.

He guides one leg over his shoulder until her thigh presses into his ear, her foot resting between his shoulder blades. Already, he wants to do this again, later, when they are both bare and he can feel the drag of her skin against his own. But there is something to be said for doing this with her half clothed and him missing nothing but his belt, the anticipation a sweet curl low in his gut. He slips his thumb over the heart of her through the thin white material, and her hip buck up. God help him, he can see how wet she is, even like this, and it chases away any thoughts of patience or teasing.

“Anthony, I – “

He pulls her underwear to the side with a finger hooked beneath, holding it against her thigh and licking into her. He tries to go slow, tries to savor it, but he finds he cannot. Not when Kate is digging her fingers into his hair and pulling tight. Not when he pushes her into the countertop, curls his fingers over her thighs, and drags his tongue wide.

Her breath catches, holds, and releases and he looks up at her even as he tongues at her clit – especially then – his gaze trapped in her own. Where she was once hesitant and shy, she is now only hungry, her left hand resting high on her stomach, almost as if she wants to touch herself as he touches her. He slips one hand from her thigh, up and over her stomach. Tangles his fingers with hers and together brings their hands under her shirt and to her breast. He encourages her to squeeze as he pulls down the cotton of her bra, her nipple caught between her fingers – a moan caught on his tongue. She gasps at the vibration and throws her head back, her right hand slipping, sending a bowl of fruit and the takeout menus to the floor with a crash.

But he hears nothing, feels nothing, notices nothing but Kate. How the muscles in her legs begin to tremble around his ears. How her hand still works under her shirt, plucking at the tip of her breast. How she tries to say his name, but gets caught halfway through, her orgasm stealing her breath and his.

He helps her through it, his mouth slowing, a gentle kiss pressed just above where she is warm and wet. He is – god, he is impossibly hard. His hips rutting into the side of his kitchen island as he presses his face against her thigh, drags his chin up until his stubble paints her skin pink.

He crawls his way up her body, tugging her shirt up and off as he goes, her underwear snapping back into place when he releases his grip on her thigh. She blinks at him – flushed cheeks, one perfect, heavy breast pressed up by the cup of her bra, her nipple tight – her smile a slow and lazy thing.

He wants to fuck her on this countertop. 

“This was a very good idea you had,” she manages, grabbing him by the jaw and licking into his mouth when he brushes his lips to hers. She groans at the taste of herself on his tongue and he – he needs her. More than he’s ever needed anything before.

“Say that again,” he whispers against her mouth. “But whisper it in my ear.”

She laughs as he spins her from the countertop. It’s easy enough with her legs wrapped high around his waist, his hands lost in her hair as they stumble across the room. His knees knock into a lamp, the end table, and a coat rack before he finally finds the couch, collapsing backwards and bringing her on top of him. She pulls at his shirt as he works at his pants, hands trembling, messy kisses and panting breaths. She stands for a moment to slip her underwear over her hips, his own hands pushing down his briefs until they catch with his jeans at his knees, his hands reaching for her, trying to guide her back, because –

She pauses in front of him, cast half in shadow. Moonlight and streetlight smoothing over skin.

“Oh, my god.”

“What?” He glances down at himself in question, his erection thick and straining between his legs, his pants still halfway on in his desperation to be inside her. He blinks and darts his gaze back up. Up to where Kate appears a little gobsmacked and a lot intrigued.

He grins.

“Come here,” he whispers and fishes a condom out of his jeans pocket before guiding her to him with his hand at her hip. She’s still wearing her bra as she settles in his lap, and he thumbs at the cup that still covers her, pulling it low until both her breasts spill free. He drags his thumbs over her nipples, curls his fingers around the swell of each breast and squeezes. Dips his head forward and licks between them, finds her nipple and sucks it into his mouth.

Her head tips back until her hair tickles his knees and he stares down between them to where his cock rests in the cradle of her thighs. Her dark skin, pressed against his own. It’s enough to drive a man mad.

“At your pace, alright?” She doesn’t answer him, her hips dragging back and forth over his own, spreading her wetness and heat along his cock in mindless little movements. He slips his hand from her breast around to her back, opens the clasp of her bra until the material falls between them. He fists his hand in her hair until she looks down at him with heavy eyes, her hand tucked around his neck, thumb resting in the hollow of his throat.

He swallows hard.

“Take me slowly, yeah? Whatever you need.”

She hums and curls her fingers around his cock in a way that has him seeing stars, guides her to where she’s wet and wanting. It’s a slow, thick slide of heat – her hips working up and down as her body welcomes him, and he presses bruises into her skin with his hands at her hips.

It’s – it’s too much.

It’s everything.

He drops his forehead to her chin and watches between them, how her body looks spread around him, his hands around her waist. It’s every dirty dream he’s ever had but impossibly better because this is – this is real. This is Kate.

She settles on him fully, a slow exhale trembling against his ear. He can feel his pulse in the base of his spine, in the hollow of his wrists. In the swell of his cock, buried deep inside her.

“You feel,” she rocks her hips forward once and he chases the movement. An answer to her call. She huffs out a laugh and drags her teeth beneath his ear. “You feel good.”

He grunts in response, lost to anything resembling speech. Not now, not when she is squeezing him so tight. Not when her body is moving over his with grace, her hips smoothing forward and then up, the tips of her breasts just barely grazing his chest. It feels like the worst sort of tease, this easy rhythm, and he lasts exactly twenty-two seconds before he pulls her down against him sharply, circling her hips against him in a dirty grind that has her rubbing against him in all the right ways. She gasps and licks into his mouth, her tongue pressed to his teeth as she shudders and whines.

He keeps her there, grinding against him, legs spread wide over his own. He flexes his hips and he - he keeps her there until her movements become jerky. Until she shudders and breaks and comes back together again.

“Kate,” he pants, mouth open against her neck. “I can’t – I can’t wait. I need – “ he thrusts up sharply, wraps both arms around her back and pulls her close.

Because he needs her desperately. Not just her body. Not just her sounds and her sighs and her moans. He needs her, he realizes. He needs her smiles and her frowns. Her husky voice and her sharp tongue. He thought – he thought this could just be sex, and he could purge her from his system. Give in, just this once, and remain unscathed. But he is –

He is lost. In her.

She drags a kiss across his forehead. “Take what you need.”

So he does.

He pulls himself from her with a grunt and pushes at the coffee table with his foot, guides her to the floor with gentle hands. Her hair spreads like a halo around her as she reaches for him, his thigh between her legs and his teeth at her neck. He’ll never be able to get this image out of his mind, he thinks. Kate, just like this, with one arm curled above her head in silent supplication, the other reaching for him, both legs curled high over his hips.

He kisses her, mindless, pressing back into her heat. He groans into her mouth. It’s never – it has never –

“I didn’t think it could feel like this,” she says, her thoughts a mirror of his own, and he loses himself a bit at that. Because he didn’t either. He didn’t realize, he had no idea, it’s always just been –

He moves faster, curls one hand around the back of her neck, the other slipping between them to thumb at her clit. He can feel himself moving against her, inside her, and heat flashes up his spine.

“Kate,” he mumbles, his orgasm dangling by a thin thread. Her hand meets his between them and she pushes down with their fingers just as she tilts her hips up, squeezing around him and he – he loses himself. The heat - it licks at the back of his thighs, over his hips, up into the very heart of him. “Kate, Kate, Kate.”

It pulls everything from him – the loneliness, the sadness, the crushing weight of unfulfilled expectations. It is only him, and Kate, and her body pressed to his, her heart thundering the same staccato as his own.

-

He’s panting when he comes back to himself, his face pressed into the floor of his apartment over her shoulder. Her hands are smoothing over his back, a hum pressed from her to him and back again.

“Well,” he sighs, long and deep. Noses at her neck. “I’m an idiot.”

He leans up on his elbows above her. She smiles without opening her eyes. Her cheeks are flushed, her eyeliner is smudged, and he’s sure he’s never seen anything more beautiful.

He is a damned, bloody idiot.

“Tell me something I don’t know,” she peeks open one eye. “Though I am feeling quite benevolent towards you at the moment.”

He nods. “Three orgasms will do that.”

She swats at his shoulder. “What have you been stupid about,” she rocks her head back and forth with a secret little smile. “This time.”

“You,” he supplies quietly. She freezes a bit, underneath him, and he drops a gentle kiss to her mouth. “This. I should have known you’d make a fool out of me.”

She blinks up at him, wary and hesitant. “What are you talking about?”

“You’re not something I need to get out of my system,” he drops his forehead to hers. “You’re already there. You’ve been there for quite some time. And I find I don’t want it to go away.”

He can feel in the way that she’s holding her body that she doesn’t quite believe him. That it – that he’s –

“That’s just the sex talking,” she manages, her hands carding through his hair like she can’t quite help herself. “We’ll talk it over in the morning. See how you feel.”

“I’ll feel the same.”

She presses a kiss to the side of his head. “Okay. We’ll see.”

-

He fucks her up against the window, bent over the ottoman, and in his shower. After the last time, she makes some half-hearted suggestion of a cab before he grabs her by the elbow and drags her into the bedroom, tossing her on the bed in a tangle of limbs and terry cloth and flannel sheets. Her eyes glow up at him, her smile pulling her mouth wide.

He collapses next to her, weary down to his very bones. Still, he curls his hand around her waist.

He’s halfway asleep when he feels her nose pressed to his collarbone, her body wiggling closer.

“Did you mean it?” She asks. “Is this – is this something you’ve wanted?”

He sighs, face buried in her hair. “I’ve always wanted you.”

-

She isn’t there when he wakes.

He pats the bed next to him and feels only cold sheets, his stomach sinking like a stone. He should have known. This whole thing, such a stupid idea, he really should have –

His door creaks open, feet padding quietly across the carpet. A mug of coffee, placed on his nightstand.

He peers open one eye. Kate smiles down at him, wearing his shirt, holding a piece of toast with jam.

“I raided your kitchen,” she says, voice raspy with sleep. A bit of jam clings to the corner of her lip, and he wants to lick it off. She climbs back on the bed, her eyes darting from his and then back again. Shy. Hesitant. Pleased. She leans over him and takes a sip from his mug. “I, uh, saw the painting. Didn’t notice it last night.”

She points at the painting that takes up a majority of the wall across from his bed, a cacophony of color and pattern, swirling together. A field of wildflowers, in full bloom. It had been at Benedict’s studio, left there from one of their joint painting sessions. The ones he tried not to be jealous over but failed miserably.

Now, he just tries not to blush. Takes the mug from her hand and sips.

“Do you understand now?” He asks.

Her face softens, her hand cupping his cheek. Her smile is a soft, secret thing. “Do you?”

-

He has her beneath him, the shirt she’s wearing peeled open, that jam spread across her collarbone, between her breasts –

He hears the door to his apartment slam open. Colin’s voice, a moment later.

“Dear god, Anthony!” There’s a clatter, a crash, and something that sounds suspiciously like paws against his hardwood. “Were you robbed?”

He winces as Kate fumbles beneath him to cover herself. The living space has certainly looked better.

(He thinks of the way Kate looked bent over the leather of his ottoman, her long legs spread wide, one of his hands holding her hip, the other threaded through her hair, her back arched, his hips pressed tight against her ass and he – he does not care a lick what his apartment looks like.)

A second later, the door to his bedroom opens and Colin pokes his head in with both hands pressed over his eyes. Anthony throws a pillow at him. Newton barrels through the door and hurls his body between him and Kate.

“Brought Newton,” Colin supplies. “Figured Kate wouldn’t be leaving anytime soon.”

Anthony peers down at Kate, her face buried in a panting and smiling Newton. She peers up at him, considering.

“Is it alright? If we stay a little longer?”

He looks at her hair spread across his pillow, Newton making himself a cozy little nest out of a discarded shirt. The door to his apartment slams shut as Colin leaves and –

“I’d like it if you would.” 


End file.
